This is not an easy thought to pen. But in these highly politicized times, I believe you have a right to know where my heart lies. When asked where my heart might lie, I’ve often laughed it off with a flippant, “On the desk, in a sealed canopic jar, along with most of the rest of my organs”. But those of you who are close to me know that this is not true. There’s just not room on my desk for that many jars; not if I want to have space for the Dream-Catcher and the Soul-Eater.
No, to be honest, I keep all of my major organs in a dusty broom-closet, and even I don’t always know their true state. But in the past weeks, I’ve gone through this in some detail, and now I know for sure: if I ever had a heart, it’s been missing for countless ages, since long before the puny species Man first took its foolish, hesitant steps onto what it pitifully believed was a globe otherwise uninhabited by thinking beings, never realizing that his own reign had, in fact, been long predated by Those whose very names could tear down every shred of human sanity.
And in my lack-of-heart, my path is clear and true: It’s Azathoth for me.
Like many of those who were formerly proponents of Dread Cthulhu, I have hesitated about speaking these things aloud. In part, this is because speaking that dread word which signifies primordial Chaos is to amplify that unspeakable voice which howls hungrily in the strangest recesses of the Void, and partly because, to be perfectly honest, I was afraid.
It’s true. I am afraid of being judged by my friends, my peers, even by strangers. I hear it on the daily: “Azothoth stands for the destruction of the world!” It’s all I see in the media, and it’s all I hear, living in the Green Bubble. But it’s simply not true.
Azathoth stands for the utter lunatic deconstruction of all things, their essential devolution from coherent forms into a peculiar and unformed inchoate ur-existence. It’s perfectly obvious; you need merely look at her record, her public statements, and her actions, as well as her original Necronomicon references. (I will not even stoop to discuss the distressing tendency on behalf of the Keepers of the Tome to change the online translations in ways which show clear political bias; they keep claiming that the words themselves self-alter in ways incomprehensible to those of us who are adrift in time and space, which is perfectly true, but nowhere in my original text can I find the phrase “VOTE CTHULHU OR WE WILL DISCONNECT YOUR INTERNET”.)
For ageless ages beyond recall, I have voted Cthulhu. My family has voted Cthulhu. My friends have all been Cthulhu supporters.
But I can no longer, in good conscience, follow them. This is partly because, as per the heart, I pretty definitely don’t have a conscience at all; and partly because I must follow the dictates of my, um, whatever it is I actually do have inside, that stuff. I need to listen to that, and be true to myself.
I realize that these feelings are likely to cost me associate and supporters, and cause rifts between myself and many of those I hold dear. I am truly sorry for the hurts this will cause. But I likewise feel, sincerely, that all these slights will be forgotten when we insignificant beings are, at last, torn into bits, either physically or psychologically or both, by the dominion of the Elder Gods.
And that, I think, is a message we can all get behind.
The preceding essay was brought to you by Dark Lords For Azathoth, and may not necessarily reflect the views of the being who wrote, edited, posted, and marketed this document.
My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities and create things. Every year, I put on Evil Expo, the Greatest Place in the World to be a Villain. I also write a lot of fantasy and science fiction.. You can get most of my books right here. Go ahead, pre-order “I HATE Your Prophecy“. It may make you into a bad person, but I can live with that.
